Space Icons Come Down to Earth

Thomas Stafford and Andrei Leonov were buying lacquer boxes.


The American astronaut and the Russian cosmonaut squabbled with the camaraderie of men who got to know each other in orbit. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was 19 years ago, but the commanders of the first international space rendezvous still know how to travel together. Stafford, 63, piled palekh into a plastic bag and Leonov, 60, flirted with the cashier.


"What do you think of this one?" said Stafford, the first man to come within nine miles of the moon. He made six trips to Russia to prepare for Apollo-Soyuz, and his palekh collection will now number 300. "Should I buy this one?"


"I want to buy Nastyushcha," said Leonov, the first man to walk in space, winking at the cashier.


Buzz Aldrin, from the first lunar landing, had also come for the 10th Planetary Congress of the Association of Space Explorers. Stuart Roosa, from the third landing, was nursing a beer in the courtyard of the Russian Academy of Management where the congress was being held. Oleg Makharov, who flew the Soyuz spacecraft four times, was running to catch the end of lunch.


In fact, almost everyone in attendance occupied a critical place in the history of space flight. Of the 308 people who have flown in space, around 100 made it to the conference this week -- 25 Americans, more than 50 Russians, three Frenchmen, two Japanese, one Romanian, one German and one Saudi Arabian.


They came not only to relive old rendezvous, but to exchange information at a series of conferences and discussions. By the end of the week, the group will generate recommendations on this year's theme: The Cosmos and Ecology. The transition from space flight to terrestrial activism is a natural one, said John Fabian, vice president of the 250-member Association of Space Explorers


"There's a commonality of thought that is generated by space flight," said Fabian, who has made two trips in the American space shuttle. For astronauts on the first Apollo flight, the experience of seeing the earth from space was a "religious transformation," and every space traveler has a similar experience, he said. "I don't know anyone who hasn't been affected by it."


Moreover, a global economic slump has dampened popular enthusiasm for space research, and the group hopes to press the effort forward. In Russia, where cosmonauts were always "icons," citizens are just beginning to question the value of research and design expenditures -- a debate that has been raging in America for years, Fabian said.


"All of us feel that man will move out beyond the earth," he said. "We fear that if we are not advocates, then it will lack advocates."


The 10th Congress was held in Russia to mark the 60th anniversary of the birth of Yury Gagarin -- the first man in space and a near-deity for generations of Soviet schoolchildren. Lined up in the conference hall were living legends such as Aldrin and Leonov, alongside younger space travelers who are seldom recognized and never asked for autographs. The time when astronauts were automatic heroes is long past, said Stafford, who now works for a technical consulting firm in Oklahoma.


"There were a few of us who were pretty well-known -- Armstrong, Shepard, myself," Stafford said. But stardom was never something he expected, he added. "It embarrassed me at first."


The celebrity status conferred on the cosmonaut is not always particularly enjoyable either, said Anatoly Savolyov, 46, who has spent 388 days in space. He sat on a bench outside, grimly fielding inquiries from the earthbound press. "People are always asking me the stupidest questions."